Carved of Ice
by Anom
Summary: Bit of a different writing style. A short fic about Eyes growing up before he met the other Blade Children, back when he was lost among those unlike himself.


I honestly don't remember what I was thinking when I wrote most of this, but it's strangely appealing so I thought I'd share it with everyone. I also like the different style of writing, there's only one line of dialogue in this whole story.

***

He was always such a quiet child. Thin, almost frail looking, with strangely silver hair. Ever since he had been born, he had been scrawny, many would have thought him harmless until they had seen his face. His eyes, those brilliantly blue orbs that had given him his name. Always cold as ice, always captivating, always giving the impression that there was a hidden deadliness lurking behind the child. Surely no one who looked this boy in the face could hold his gaze without feeling at least some discomfort.

No child should have been so silent, so intense as he had always been. Newborns screamed; he hadn't. Children laughed and romped with friends, yelling happily; never him. His parents had heard the same things over and over many times, 'It must be so nice to have such a well-mannered child, 'You're so lucky to have had a quiet baby', and they always smiled and agreed, but never in their hearts. They found him alone always. In the corner of the yard, in his lightless room, away from the other children on the playgrounds they had hoped would encourage their child to be normal, he was there, cold and unyielding.

They had some inkling of what he was, what it meant that his ribcage wasn't quite complete. They made up stories to explain it; a birth defect, a heart problem that had required surgery. And people always believed, always reacted with sympathy. But they never could understand why he clutched at the open spot so often, why it pained him so. In some sick way, this reassured them. That their boy was capable of feeling pain, that they heard him crying over his strange ailment seemed to prove that he was a living being; not some devil carved from ice.

It wasn't right that parents should feel such unease when they beheld their child. Yet how could they not when he acted in such a manner? When he abandoned the company of others to sulk in darkness, and stared as though entranced at kitchen knives when he thought no one was looking. Who wouldn't feel at least somewhat wary of a child like that?

Yet they still hoped that he could be normal someday. As if his destiny was some disease that could be cured with proper treatment. So the boy was forced into being around 'normal' children, signed up for boy scouts, for soccer, for after-school activities that he invariably escaped. Always he would slip away from the crowds to the shelter of the woods or his secluded room. And when he could not he isolated himself in the group without even trying, as if the young children with him could sense that there was something different about their peer, something dark and sinister lurking amongst them.

Occasionally he would speak to his parents, informing them curtly that he didn't like the other children, they didn't like him. It was always said so intelligently, like it was coming from someone much older and wiser than he should have been at his age.

Then he had met another like him.

At first his parents had rejoiced when their little one had come home from school with the news that he had a new friend. They dared to believe he was growing out of his curse, his strange ways. The boy he had met seemed nice enough. A normal looking child with thin brown hair and a ready smile who introduced himself politely to them. For a time it seemed things were for once normal with their family. And they dared to relax.

Then things became much worse. Their enigmatic child grew even more distant. He would disappear for hours on end and return silently, offering no explanation of where he had gone or why, and nothing his parents did or said could make him confess. It was no longer a battle to make him go to school, or to his other activities as long as his new friend was there. But the two children, when together, seemed to intensify the strangeness, and it wasn't long until his parents realized that the other boy was not normal either; he had just learned to hide it better.

Now that they had found each other there was no need to pretend, and none of their peers dared approach either for some deep seated fear they could not explain or describe. Now the ice eyed child had a companion to share his darkness with, a comrade who understood the strange inclinations to harm other children, a friend who did not think it odd that the younger boy found himself drawn to death and destruction.

He knew much, the brown haired child. It was as if he had been destined to meet and guide the young boy whom he now valued above all others. Under his tutelage, the younger boy gradually grew to understand himself, to finally give a name to what he was.

His parents worried over him, but there seemed nothing they could do. Things had only gotten worse, and it wore on them heavily. Soon they stopped trying to change their child. His 'mentor' had more influence over him than they, it was he that was sought out now when the ice eyed boy felt the pain in his chest, it was he who wiped away the cold tears and received what little emotion was shown. There was nothing they could do anymore, there was no way to fight what seemed destined, and they gave up.

One night, however, things changed.

They didn't know whose blood it was, or if it had even come from a human. Perhaps it had been an unfortunate animal that had crossed the boys' path. Nevertheless, they screamed when they found their little one lying calmly in the grass, casually observing the crimson that drenched his clothes and stained his hands. Hearing their screams, he turned a chilling gaze and offered what he might have thought to be comforting words,

"It isn't my blood...."

He said no more, offered no resistance as they stripped the bloodied clothes away from him and tried in vain to take the horrific color from his hair. He said nothing, silent as death the entire evening, even after his skin was rubbed raw and his hair cleansed to only a faint pink. 

He didn't suffer from the chest pains that night, or the night after. He stayed home from school, silent and serene where he sat on the couch, as if his soul had fled leaving only a shell behind. His parents never told anyone what had happened, and they never found out whose blood it had been that night that their child had spilt. Fearing someone coming for their child, they moved, taking him away from his crime and away from the brown haired boy with the eery smile who had encouraged his strange tendencies.

After that, they once again began their efforts to 'fix' whatever was wrong with him, and they increased those efforts like never before. He was rarely alone in those days. His parents were afraid to leave him by himself, afraid of the harm he could cause himself or others. Again came the forced play dates with other children, the sports, the after-school activities. And again he subtly resisted every step of the way.

Slowly the efforts wound down, and the boy slipped quickly into depression. He missed the boy who suffered as he did, he hated his parents for taking him away, hated that the pain in his chest had slowly returned, and he learned to hold in his cries of pain, preferring to suffer in silence rather than go to his parents for comfort.

It was not long after that the piano was delivered to their house. His mother's aunt had died, and had left the priceless instrument to her nieces family. None of them had played, and the piano was dusty and out of tune. But the boy was strangely drawn to it, he was underfoot while it was brought in, he watched it curiously when his mother attempted to fix it up.

Weary and having almost given up on her son, his mother still noticed the unusual curiosity in her child. She latched onto that, and sat her son in front of the keys, encouraging him to try a few. Hesitantly, the boy poked a few keys, almost delighted at the sound they made. He soon grew bored, however, and disappeared, expecting to have no more to do with the grand black instrument in their house.

So he had been surprised when the instructor had shown up, had been angry at his mother for daring to force him into this. And yet he had conceded to submit to at least some of the torture. He sat through his first lesson, and refused afterward to admit that it had been one of the more enjoyable things his parents had forced him to do. Outwardly, he hoped that had been a one-time incident, that they would take some sort of hint and not pursue the matter.

It didn't happen that way. The tutor came again the next week, and the week after. And each time, the boy sat though his lessons begrudgingly, finding a talent that amazed even him. On his tutors' insistence, the lessons were upped to several times a week as the boys' talent grew.

Every moment he spent in front of the piano was a moment his parents didn't have to worry about him, and eventually they had him playing even when his tutor was not there. In some last, desperate attempt to quell the killing urges in him they made him play the instrument. And play he did, all of the time. Resisting at first, he gradually came to play even when not told. It became an obsession, the only thing he'd ever done that had met his parent's approval.

When he played, it was like everything ceased to exist. He felt nothing, he saw nothing but the keys and the music in front of him. The beautiful melodies and sonatas the boy skillfully played meant nothing to him, none of them stirred even the most remote of emotions from his heart. But he played on.

He played whenever he felt the need to slice open his own skin if only to see the blood spill.

He played whenever he found himself thinking over how easily he could kill his parents in their sleep.

He played even when the pain in his side grew so great his vision grew blurry and the only thing keeping the music going was his memory of the keys' placement.

He played after his parents died and he was left alone in the world, the sound of the keys filling his room instead of tears.

He played even after he found himself reunited with his brown haired comrade.

The piano was him; his passions, his hates, his desires, the cold void that slowly grew within him was expressed through it as well. When all humanity no longer meant anything to Eyes Rutherford, the piano sang his frustrations at the cursed destiny he was forced to bear.

And Kanone Hilbert was always there to listen.


End file.
